The Stone Golem

by Mary Gentle

  In Iberian I said, ‘You’ll know one thing about the law of slavery, I don’t doubt. What happens when the owner of a slave is murdered?’

  The chime of the hammer fixing the second rivet all but drowned his words:

  ‘The household slaves are tortured—’

  ‘Tortured. Why? Why not questioned?’

  ‘Because it’s assumed all slaves lie; it’s a legal assumption—’

  I saw it hit him.

  If Ilario dies, I am a household slave; I will be tortured.

  Not even because they assume a slave committed the murder, but simply that a slave will not be trusted to be honest because they’re a slave.

  Ramiro Carrasco looked up at me with wide dark eyes.

  I watched him as I spoke. ‘If something were to happen to me, if I were to die–even if it was merely from a sickness…Then, my slaves will be turned over to the authorities, and tortured to find out what they know. And Ramiro Carrasco the slave won’t know anything about what killed me. But–interrogated men talk about everything they know, if they’re subjected to enough pain. Everything.’

  There was no need to say it aloud, in front of the jailor; I saw the understanding in Ramiro Carrasco’s expression.

  Everything. Including every order Aldro Videric ever gave you, when he told you to murder me.

  10

  Outside the Doge’s palace, Tottola went to the Riva degli Schiavoni to summon a gondola. Attila crossed his arms, the end of the slave’s chain-leash held in one hand.

  Ramiro Carrasco blinked against the sunlight, weak as it was.

  It was clear enough to show up the filth caking him. He did not, for all he wore the same clothes, appear much to resemble the sardonic secretary of my sister Sunilda.

  Tears ran down his face, and he lifted both hands to wipe them, since his wrists were manacled together. I wondered if it was the brightness of the light.

  He shot a dazzled look at me. ‘My family—’

  I gazed back coolly. ‘As an owner, I can always volunteer my own slave for interrogation.’

  He took a step forward and Attila jerked the links of the chain through his fingers. The iron collar came up hard against Carrasco’s windpipe. I couldn’t help wincing in sympathy; I know how that feels.

  ‘Declared your slave…’ There was a degree of wonder in his tone.

  No, he hasn’t realised the truth of it yet.

  ‘You have to stay with me now,’ I said, gently enough. ‘What we’re going to do with you, God knows. But you have to live with me, as my slave, so that if anything happens to me, all Videric’s dirty little facts get spilled out into the open. It’s a balance, a set of scales: if he kills me, everything comes out into the open.’

  Videric may know me well enough to know I only want to be left alone. But whether he believes it–whether he fears having knowledge at large, in my head, not safely in a hole in the ground…

  ‘You’re my precaution,’ I said. ‘And since you have to be a slave for it to work–then you are a slave. You don’t understand that yet, but I suppose you will.’

  Attila rumbled a brief, ‘Let me belt the cheeky bastard.’

  Ramiro Carrasco opened his mouth. And shut it again.

  ‘That’s right.’ I shrugged. ‘If I tell Attila here to beat you until your bones break–and if he was the kind of man to do it–I could order it right here, and no one could stop it happening. You have to understand this. You don’t have the legal protection of being a serf. You’re no more human than a horse or a chair.’

  It was not my words that had the effect on him, I thought, but the sombre lack of surprise from Honorius’s soldier–a man whom Ramiro Carrasco would probably know, from his visits to Neferet’s house.

  ‘You…’ Ramiro Carrasco turned his head and looked at me. His back straightened. Even under the filth, he had a certain amount of dignity. I wondered how much experience of slavery it would take to curve his spine, and make him–as I sometimes still do–lower my head automatically in the presence of the free.

  Ramiro Carrasco said, ‘You may have stopped him killing my mother and father.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Because if that news were to reach him, he would turn traitor to Videric freely; any man would. ‘But you had no way of knowing that I–that it was because…You couldn’t know!’

  I flicked back in the small hand-sewn pages of my sketchbook, abandoning an effort to draw the standing gondolier steering his craft in towards the steps. I found the page I wanted, and turned it towards Carrasco.

  He looked down at his own face, in a preliminary sketch for Gaius.

  ‘Look at that, Ramiro. Tell me that I didn’t know you weren’t doing this of your own accord.’

  His collared neck straightened; he stared at me with fierce affront. ‘Drawing me? You couldn’t know anything about me!’

  Studying and reproducing the planes and features of a face, time after time, seeing how it subtly alters with each emotion…Once, I stopped midway through a charcoal drawing of Ramiro Carrasco, when I had put in the tone of his face, and only an outline of his hair. It made him look white-haired. I had thought, This is how Carrasco will look when he’s fifty.

  I stated, ‘You’ve never killed a man.’

  I saw the shock on his face.

  ‘If you can fight with a sword, it’s because you saw an arms master for a few weeks while you were at your university, and any new recruit would kill you inside two minutes. You were planning to stick a knife into me, because anybody can do that, surely? You’ve been delaying, delaying all the time, terrified that the Aldra would carry out his threats–I don’t know what reports you’ve been sending back to him, but I know you wanted to convince him you were just about to succeed. All the time, just on the verge of success.’

  The muscles that surround the jaw bone relax under shock. His mouth hung very slightly open. It wasn’t fair that it gave him a look that was faintly comic. Under these circumstances, that could move one to pity.

  ‘Yes, you could kill a man in self-defence,’ I hazarded. ‘No, you’re not an assassin. And Videric wouldn’t care what being a murderer would do to you. Why would he? Here you were–educated, so capable of taking a place with Federico; capable of being blackmailed, therefore controllable; capable of getting close to the man-woman Ilario. You were perfect. But just…not a natural assassin.’

  Carrasco’s voice cracked with desperation. ‘Let me go back to Taraco! I don’t even know if they’re alive, if my father—’

  ‘They’re better protected from the Aldra while you’re here.’

  Videric would calmly and coldly work out that his weapon had turned in his hand, I knew. And would I put it past Videric to go into a white rage, and order his serfs slaughtered out of rage? It would be stupidity. But…

  Carrasco stared at me. I read the same knowledge in him. Yes, he knows Videric well. And wishes he didn’t.

  ‘I can’t guarantee anything,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I wish I could.’

  ‘You’re sorry?’ Ramiro Carrasco’s voice went up an octave.

  By his side, Attila looked thoughtfully at the chain-leash’s end. I shook my head. The exchange went right past Ramiro.

  Carrasco spluttered, ‘You’re sorry? I tried to smother you!’

  ‘Yes. I do remember.’

  The caustic remark was very much in his own vein. It stopped him dead.

  ‘Ilaria…You can do…whatever you like to me, can’t you? If you want revenge for me frightening you…’

  He didn’t say for hurting you; he was perceptive enough to know which I would resent the more.

  I shrugged. ‘That’s one of the things about being a slave.’

  ‘And I can’t…’ His dark eyes blinked against the spring sun, running clear water after the jail’s permanent dimness. ‘I can’t thank you for perhaps saving my family’s lives, either. Because you’ll just think I’m trying to escape a punishment.’

  ‘That’s another of the thi
ngs about being a slave.’ I moved forward as the gondola came in to the steps. Looking back as I took Tottola’s extended hand, I said, ‘With slavery as you find it in Iberia, nothing honest can be said between slave and master.’

  Attila thrust Ramiro Carrasco into the boat behind me, the chain drawn up tight enough that he had the secretary-assassin by the neck, iron biting into the secretary’s prison-filthy flesh.

  Honorius and Rekhmire’ appeared on the Alexandrine house’s jetty before we got within fifty yards of the landing stage. They watched in silence, one standing beside the other, as the gondola glided up and we disembarked.

  ‘What?’ Honorius pointed at the stinking and wet figure crouching in the bottom of the boat–wet because Ramiro Carrasco de Luis had not entirely believed Tottola wouldn’t let go if he jumped over the side of the gondola.

  Ramiro Carrasco coughed, shivered, and spat over the side, wiping his running nose.

  The royal book-buyer chimed in, ‘Why?’

  ‘I bought him,’ I said–and watched comprehension spread over their faces.

  11

  ‘You’re a wonder!’ the Captain-General of Castile and Leon grinned, pulling me up out of the gondola and into his arms, and swinging me around in such a way that my scars pulled painfully–which I would not have told him for the world.

  ‘Well done!’ Rekhmire’ gave me a pat on the shoulder, when he might reach me. ‘Ilario–that was almost clever.’

  ‘Why, thank you!’ I mimed being offended, and gasped a little, under the impression my ribs might crack. Honorius released me. I added, ‘All I need to do now is get word back to Videric, to tell him.’

  A thought made me grin.

  ‘A shame Federico decided not to go back to Taraco–I would like to have seen his face, when I asked him to carry the message…’

  Rekhmire’ openly snickered.

  ‘Shall we go in?’ I added.

  ‘What about him?’ Honorius jerked a thumb at my purchase.

  ‘He’s a slave, he has to be seen to be treated like one.’ I glanced at Rekhmire’. ‘I was thinking–along the lines of the Alexandrine model. Once we get out of Venice.’

  The book-buyer smiled, and inclined his head.

  Honorius continued loud congratulations while I introduced Carrasco to the kitchens and the soldiers, with stern words that the man should not be injured because valuable. I thought one or two of them entirely likely to give him more than a brain-fever, if left unwarned; attempting to murder a woman in child-bed is comfortably different enough from a soldier’s killing that they can safely feel the utmost contempt.

  Even if the woman is not wholly a woman.

  The late frost bit at my fingers as I returned from the courtyard, having shown Ramiro Carrasco the iron bars on the gate. I sent him off to Sergeant Orazi to be found a place to sleep. Rekhmire’ came up with me on my way to the main room, his steps more uneven now because of his less-than-successful attempts to use a walking-stick instead of his crutch.

  ‘Out with it!’ I directed, when we had reached the room and he had not yet spoken.

  Honorius looked up curiously from a joint-stool by the fire, evidently equally desirous of hearing the answer.

  ‘I admire your initiative.’ Rekhmire’ racketed over to the room’s only armed chair, lurching like a town drunk at midday. ‘To conceive of buying Carrasco–and to put the plan into operation—’ He gave a faint smile. ‘It’s admirable. It’s worthy of a book-buyer.’

  ‘Spy!’ Honorius rubbed his fingers hard under his nose, preventing himself from laughing. He had ceased to be entirely clean-shaven in the last few days, and was growing a moustache. I assumed he thought it would disguise him, at least to be less recognisable at a distance. It came out a little greyer than the hair of his head.

  Having an ear for nuance, at least where the Egyptian is concerned, I smiled at my father, and turned back to Rekhmire’.

  ‘But? “It’s admirable”–and I hear a but.’

  Rekhmire’ sighed. ‘But it won’t work.’

  12

  The four words dropped into the room and brought about complete silence.

  ‘What do you mean, it won’t work!’

  I checked the door and window by reflexive action. No Ramiro Carrasco; no guards or servants other than Honorius’s trusted men.

  ‘How can it not work?’

  ‘Consider.’ Rekhmire’ steepled his fingers in the old way he had had in Rome. ‘If you die, Carrasco is legally tortured, and Videric’s secrets come out. If Carrasco dies–nothing.’

  I stared at him. Able only to echo. ‘If Carrasco dies…’

  ‘Dies first. All you’ve done,’ Rekhmire’ observed, ‘is given Videric a motive to have Carrasco assassinated before he kills you.’

  Into the stunned quiet, Honorius’s voice intoned, ‘Shite.’

  ‘I—’ The inescapability of it flooded in on me.

  ‘I wondered why he had been left alive,’ Rekhmire’ added, shifting uncomfortably on the hard chair. ‘It wouldn’t have been difficult to get a man into the prison to silence him. Evidently Videric didn’t consider him a danger. If you’ve made him into one…’

  The Egyptian shrugged.

  ‘…You ensure he will kill both of you.’

  ‘No.’ I slammed one fist into my other hand. ‘I thought it out, every step of it! It will work. It’s a stand-off. All the while I have Ramiro Carrasco, Aldra Videric can’t touch me!’

  ‘All the while you have Carrasco,’ the Egyptian emphasised softly. ‘I grant you, it works while you do. But what you’ve done now is given Aldra Videric a reason to kill the slave before he kills you. And the easiest way to be sure of that, is to kill both you and he together.’

  To come so close to safety–so close—

  Despair went through me. I pushed it down, out of sight, so that the two men should not see it when I turned back to them.

  Honorius clearly forced himself to sound encouraging. ‘It’s a good plan, while it works.’

  Rekhmire’ very briefly smiled. Knowing him as I did, I thought it was an appreciation of the irony of the assassin Carrasco now become the target.

  Frustration washed through me. I thought it no metaphor, now, that men’s vision goes red when they hate.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I do!’ I snarled. ‘He’ll never get back into power, the King will never take him as First Minister again, but Videric is just going to keep on sending more men! He’ll send soldiers, he’ll–I don’t know–bribe a ship’s captain to maroon me–send a proper murderer who’s efficient enough to sneak through a military guard–something. Aldra Videric, he’ll just…keep on coming. Keep. On. Coming.’

  13

  There has to be an answer.

  I can’t see it.

  Venice, which had seemed safe enough while I knew the freeman Ramiro Carrasco’s location and temper, seemed dangerous now.

  I thought there might also be an outside chance that, as a slave, he could still be able to hire men to kill me. But given the risk to his extended family back in Taraconensis; I doubted he would attempt that.

  But…I have no idea who else is here from Taraconensis. Who may be on the road here, of docking on a ship this minute…

  No one knocked on my door. Honorius and Rekhmire’ both knew me better than to think I would want companions. I curled up in the window embrasure, taking charcoal to a wooden board, and rubbing out everything I drew that I was unsatisfied with. Which was everything. Proportion, value, perspective: all eluded me.

  Some time towards the evening, when the dusk came swiftly down, a servant brought a plate of food and a jug and cup. Not until I caught his individual way of moving in peripheral vision did I realise it was not a servant, but Ramiro Carrasco de Luis.

  Not a servant but a slave.

  I put the drawing-board down and stretched my legs, uncurling out of my seated position with spine to the wall. The secretary-assassin stood by the table, food abandoned, his express
ion awkward. I wondered why he was so ill at ease; whether I should be suspicious.

  ‘I’ll take it back.’ Carrasco’s resigned voice broke the silence. ‘I’ll get someone else to bring you a meal.’

  Poisoning me will keep his family alive, at least, provided Videric keeps his word–even if it’ll get Carrasco handed over for a judicial burning as a poisoner.

  Unless they flay him, as a slave who has killed his master.

  Ramiro Carrasco’s face showed a faint pink colour that was not reflected warmth from the hearth fire. ‘You ought to eat.’

  He abruptly reached down to pick up the wooden plate. It had dark bread and pale cheese on it, and I could smell that what was in the jug was honey ale. All of which can be sabotaged, I suppose, if a man sets his mind and ingenuity to it. But then, what can’t be?

  Crossing the room, I caught hold of Ramiro Carrasco’s wrist, took the plate out of his hand, and set it back on the table. He appeared surprised that I would be strong enough to arrest his movement.

  ‘I’ll eat,’ I said. His skin felt cool in my grip. I released him. ‘Who sent you? My father? The Egyptian?’

  Ramiro Carrasco de Luis looked down at the floorboards.

  There was enough light from the window and the hearth-fire to let me see he ferociously blushed.

  I could scent him sweating, too, but there wasn’t the cold sweat of fear.

  ‘You got this for me.’ I couldn’t help smiling at his evident embarrassment.

  ‘It’s not–tampered with!’

  ‘You got this for me. Because…’

  He was not in the dark Italian doublet and hose that he had worn as Sunilda’s secretary, and naturally enough he had no stiletto at his belt. I’d bought him, but who clothed him?

  Honorius, probably, from the household guards’ baggage. The rumpled woollen hose, and doublet with darned point-holes, both looked as if they might have been discarded by some soldier after long service.

  Carrasco had enough of the freeman still in him that he stood as if the scruffy clothes were a humiliation rather than a fortunate gift.